Soundcard or DAC upgrade advice needed

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This is an edit of a post i've put on Computer Audiophile forum. I think some of the regulars here may have some useful input too.

I'm in the process of speccing up an HTPC with the emphasis on sound. My basic spec is near finalised and I've a post on Silent PC Review so their good folk can point out errors in my thinking. Those folk aren't too hot on the audio side though. This is where you guys come in.

I currently use a Maplin USB to Optical adapter (£18) and Beresford TC7510 DAC (£110) to feed my pre amp.

I figure I have between £300 (if I play PC games sometimes) to £470 (if I never play a PC game again) of my budget left to get sound from my new HTPC to Pre Amp.

My proposed motherboard uses ALC889A HD audio chip with SPDIF out.

How do I spent that cash?

A USB or firewire card to my Beresford?

An SPDIF,USB or firewire DAC replacing the Beresford?

A secondhand Lynx AES16 with cable adapters to take analogue xlr to phono straight to pre amp?

A secondhand AES16 with AES/EBU SPDIF adapter to Beresford?

Save up and get a Benchmark?

My current weakest link seems to be the Maplin adapter. An M Audio Audiophile could fix that and leave loads of change.

I'm just entering that vast hinterland between budget value and uber exotica.

I need help because I want to buy soon.

Thaks in advance for any assistance offered.

Lee

 

[John Duncan]

You have the SP/DIF out from the motherboard - so you have an optical out? How does it get out of the PC, does there need to be an interface of some sort?

I would be inclined to simply use that (or, if there has to be an interface, the Maplin USB thingie, since it'll be as good as anything), to feed the DAC of your choice. The Beresford is a good start, the DACMagic is next up and is fabulous and has balanced outputs. I don't think you need to add anyting else, I'd save the rest for your console. Course, if you want multi-channel out, that's a different matter, you'll need a multi-channel sound card.

 

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Oh yes, I forgot to mention. For the forseeable future I'll be using a direct connection from PC to the pre amp. No NAS or Airport Express or Squeezebox.

I might get a little network sometime next year to use all the IDE drives I currently back up to via USB.

I use Foobar for quick play from explorer because it's so fast and responsive. I also use Media Monkey (Gold soon) for more prolonged sessions.

Now that I mention it maybe NAS and Sqeezebox is the way forward. Hmm. I do find it easier to browse files on my 22" monitor though. I'll have to go read but I don't think I'll like it. Maybe that's just me talking out of ignorance.

So what are the options there too then?

Anyway, got to go, my Pink Floyd at Pompeii DVD has just arrived.

 

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Soory John, I made that last post without noticing yours.

Yes the motherboard has an SPDIF out. Using that to feed the DAC would be the obvious, cheapest and easiest thing to do.

However as is always the case with audiophile things, I've heard many conflicting ideas. Some say a digital out is a digital out is a digital out and that they'e all the same. Others argue for better jitter (or no jitter) from using a studio grade sound card, even for simple 2 channel out.

You seem to fall into the former camp John. Me, I wasn't sure, but I've been reading your posts on here for a few months and will readily accept you know your stuff.

That would seem to simplify things greatly then.

I need a good optical cable and DAC upgrade. The Cambridge DAC would seem to be the obvious choice in my budget range.

Yes, the output on the motherboard is 7.1 whilst the DAC is (will be) 2 channel. My priority is 2 channel stereo however. I'd happily forego digital surround out on the PC and feed this SPDIF to my DAC for better stereo.

I've still got 7.1 analogue outs from the PC and my Yamaha AV amp for surround duties.

Thanks.

Lee

 

[chebby]

A DAC solution that simply plugs in to your SPDIF (or USB) output and automatically defaults to being the soundcard (bypassing the built in one) is the simplest and probably best solution.

The CA DacMagic (or Benchmark) have their own proprietary means of dealing with any jitter. (The DacMagic has a 32 bit Digital Signal Processor to deal with this.)

As for the optical cable then this is probably a good bet....

http://www.chord.co.uk/chordweb/optichord.htm

Cable review...

http://whathifi.com/Review/Chord-Company-Optichord/

Costs about £44 for 3.0 metres from Analogue Seduction on ebay.

 

[John Duncan]

up the music:I've been reading your posts on here for a few months and will readily accept you know your stuff

Schoolboy error.

However, I'm with Chebby that jitter has to be dealt with somewhere, and I'd be inclined to trust a DACMagic (or similar) with handling it given an SPDIF feed - to me, if an airport express can create a bit-perfect optical out (which somebody proved somewhere), then I'll leave the creation of the audio to something that's good at it - now, that can be an outboard DAC or a studio grade sound card, since they're both dong the same thing, but for my purposes the DAC is more versatile. This may not be the case for you, and I'd be willing to bet that spending the same money on a sound card would give you more or less the same result, provided it had the facilities you needed.

Long story short - trust the SPDIF output from the motherboard, and add the ancilliary (outboard DAC or great soundcard) that has the inputs and outputs you want.

 

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wow, thanks for all this feedback. Point taken. Either a good soundcard or a good DAC will suffice, but there's little point in both. (At least that's how I scanned your post).

Thanks for cable advice too. 1 1/2m should suffice.

Well, I think the Lynx would work very well, but I'd also be paying for a lot of features I'm never going to use. I think I can live with yet another black box instead. The Cambridge is a pretty black box at least and matches all my other black boxes visually very well.

My only remaining niggle is this. Can I use Foobar/Media Monkey (I use both) with ASIO (4All) drivers or WAV out through an onboard SPDIF in WinXP? I imagine I will be able to, but does anybody here do that succesfully with above mentioned audiochip?

Cheers.
Lee

 

[John Duncan]

up the music:Either a good soundcard or a good DAC will suffice, but there's little point in both. (At least that's how I scanned your post).

You scan correctly - choose which one gives you the most practical inputs and outputs for your purpose, with one caveat - if you go for the soundcard option, take care to assess (via reviews and such) its susceptibility to interference from the PC power supply - the cheap cr-p one on my laptop sounds awful when plugged into the mains, not so on battery.

 

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Yes. The Lynx AES16 cards have an excellent reputation. They should at £650. They handle the analogue side very well for an internal card.
But that's not the direction I'm taking.

Re my ASIO on this chip query.
I've just been looking and the suggestions are that it'll support kernel streaming under XP but not Vista.
Some more searching and I might get to the bottom of that one.

Incidentally, is Beresford to Cambridge enough of an upgrade to spend £200 on?
I can always take my Beresford to Richers to find out I suppose.

Thinking about it though, I'll probably be better putting that cash to another use?
Like sub and hf speaker cables?

Rest of my system:-

Exposure 19 Pre Amp / 2*Exposure Super 18 (Stereo) power amps (bi amped), Cambridge Paciic interconnect.
Acoustic Energy AE1 mk2's on Partington Dreadnaughts. Linn K20 cable bass, Gale (something a little cheap and silvered from Richers) top.
Velodyne SMS1 subwoofer controller/equaliser, 2*Acoustic Energy AE308 subs (poor quality 5m sub cables).

 

[Alec]

up the music:wow, thanks for all this feedback. Point taken. Either a good soundcard or a good DAC will suffice, but there's little point in both. (At least that's how I scanned your post).

But with the Lynx card you would need sopme other DAC, as it is purely an I/O device without the ability to produce analogue sound - taht is, it only sends a digital signal to a DAC, so you can hear it - it doesnt itself produce anything you can hear, according to : http://www.computeraudiophile.com/node/1097 , with attention to the posts by Al and The Computer Audiophile/Chris Connaker.

 

[John Duncan]

Tricky - seeing as the 19 doesn't appear to have balanced inputs, I'm thinking the benefits of a DACMagic over a Beresford would be quite small. It would look cooler though.

You could ask Richers about their returns policy on the DM. Or you could borrow one if there's someone on here who's local to you?

 

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Integrated No
Transport No
DAC Yes
Multidisc No
Thanks for pointing out the folly in thinking the AES16 had analogue outs too. The fog lifts and it becomes a little clearer.

John
Now this DacMagic thing. I'm inclined to try it because I do find the Bereford a little sterile. You confuse me with this talk of my lack of balanced inputs being a problem. I thought the DacMagic had both balaned and unbalanced outs, though I hadn't paid it too much attention until an hour ago. It sounds from what you say that it has only balanced outs.

However I've just copy pasted the following from the specs section of the DAC Magic on this very site.

Coaxial digital out 1
Optical digital out 1
XLR out 0
RCA out 1
Headphone 0
Coaxial digital in 2
Optical digital in 2
XLR in 0
RCA in 0
CD Text No
Memory No
Display off No
Finishes 2

That suggests RCA phono out only and no XLR out. Is that wrong? Should somebody tell Clare?

 

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Yes, I loused that table up, but you see what I mean.

 

[chebby]

Why not just look.....

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/assets/documents/DAC_Magic_rear.jpg

 

[John Duncan]

up the music:That suggests RCA phono out only and no XLR out. Is that wrong? Should somebody tell Clare?

No, it definitely has both RCA and XLR outs, but no balanced digital in (to be expected). My point being that unless you have a balanced input on your amp, which has some advantages, then the Beresford and DACMagic would be quite close together sonically (as suggested by the reviews on here - the DM edges it, though not by much, is my reading of it). But it's definitely cooler.

 

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I remember now seeing that photo before when the DAC Magic had just been released. People were wondering what sockets were 'assigned' to which inputs. Yes, indeed the picture makes all plain, it does indeed have balanced and unbalanced inputs.

The point about balanced outputs giving the DAC Magic a further edge for users with balanced inputs is taken. Curiously my pre power amp does have XLR pre out power in (in addition to RCA phono) but these are unbalanced. Exposure just chose to use them because they give a better contact, but that's an aside.

DAC Magic is definitely cooler, and though it may not be much better in absolute terms. The reviews suggest the DAC Magic is closer to the 'sound' that I like. I guess the only way to find out is take myself off to Leeds and see.

Whilst I'm in Leeds I can get some subwoofer cables and speaker cable too, and a ferrite or two from Maplin to help RFI on my pre amp.

Thanks to all contributors to this post so far. I've cleared up quite a few of my problems.